Mental Health and Access to Mental Health Care

Richard Bischoff seeks to improve access to high-quality mental health care via the use of technology and videoconferencing. He has been on the UNL faculty since 1998, having moved to Nebraska from San Diego, Calif., where he worked as a marriage and family therapist. He applies his interest in collaborative health care and medical family therapy to Nebraska’s rural medical settings, using videoconferencing as a primary treatment delivery option to provide care to underserved populations. This strategy has increased access to mental health care for underserved rural residents and has resulted in improved perceptions about mental health problems and mental health care in the communities served. Participating student therapists receive firsthand experience with mental health care technology and working with providers and patients in rural areas. (Updated December 2024.)

Julia McQuillan is a Willa Cather Professor of Scoiology as well as the Chair for the Sociology Department. She has done research about the psychosocial dimensions and the health disparities of fertility and infertility in women. McQuillan has also researched the affect that fertility plays on marriage and divorce. She is currently researching about social inequality, with special emphasis on changing structures and practices to increase equity and wellbeing.

Sociologist Christina Falci has written about depression in adolescence and about the cross of race and gender in mental health. She seeks to understand the social determinants of mental health and illness by using four key determinants: social network structure, perceptions of social relationships, stress exposure, and the self-concept. She also draws from social psychology and network theory to study the predictors and consequences of faculty social networks. Falci is an active chairwomen for Women in the Profession Committee for the Midwest Sociological Society.

Julia Torquati is a professor in the Department of Child, Youth and Family Studies and chair of Infant Mental Health Committee. Torquati studies the impact of programs that move kids outdoors and also studies effective teaching methods for teachers. Her recent work has examined the relationship between family income, parent education and the quality of early childhood education programs, as well as environmental education, a natural way to nurture children’ development and learning. She holds a doctorate in family studies from the University of Arizona and previously worked as a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Department of Pediatrics.